SAG members can see ‘The Kids Are All Right’ and ‘The Fighter’ on iTunes

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Looks like all the fears of piracy associated with iTunes screeners are proving to be unfounded. Both Focus Features and Paramount Pictures are dipping their toes into the world of downloadable screeners via iTunes, announcing Friday that their award contenders ‘The Kids Are All Right’ and ‘The Fighter,’ respectively, will be available for viewing online for the 93,000 members of SAG.

The move comes one week after 20th Century Fox announced that its three Fox Searchlight titles ‘Black Swan,’ ‘127 Hours’ and ‘Conviction’ would be available via online download.

Fox has yet to release any information as to how the iTunes screeners are being received, though SAG members have lodged some complaints on the L.A. Times message boards that they don’t enjoy watching these prestige films on a small computer screen or, even worse, a phone. Some are also reporting that the downloads are not playing on some PC operating systems, specifically Windows 7 and Windows XP.

Calls to Fox Searchlight were not returned at the time of this posting.

‘The Fighter’ and ‘The Kids Are All Right’ will both be available via iTunes, for a one-time showing, until voting for SAG concludes on Jan. 28.

Should this batch of iTunes downloads from Focus and Paramount, and their partner Relativity Media, get more positive feedback, this may be the wave of the awards-voting future.

-- Nicole Sperling